Behind him, impassive-faced Rowland stood watching the departing frontiersman steadily, the pouches beneath his eyes accentuated by the tightened lids.

“I don’t believe there’s a bit more danger here now than there ever was,” he commented; “but there’s certainly an unusual disturbance somewhere.  I don’t take any stock in the people down at the settlement leaving—­they’d go if they heard a coyote whistle; but Brown tells me there’ve been three different trappers from Big Stone gone through south in the last week, and when they leave it means something.  If you say the word we’ll leave everything and go yet.”

“If we do we’ll never come back.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yes.  I’m either afraid of these red people or else I’m not.  We went before because the others went.  If we left now it would be different.  We’d be tortured day and night if we really feared—­what happens now and then to some.  We came here with our eyes wide open.  We can’t start again in civilisation.  We’re too old, and there’s the past—­”

“You still blame me?”

“No; but we’ve chosen.  Whatever comes, we’ll stay.”  She turned toward the rough log shanty unemotionally.

“Come, let’s forget it.  Dinner’s waiting and baby’s hungry.”

A moment Rowland hesitated, then he, too, followed.

“Yes, let’s forget it,” he echoed slowly.

* * * * *

“Well, in Heaven’s name!” Rowland’s great bulk was upon its feet, one hand upon the ever-ready revolver at his hip, the dishes on the rough pine dining table clattering with the suddenness of his withdrawal.  “Who are you, man, and what’s the trouble?  Speak up—­”

The dishevelled intruder within the narrow doorway glanced about the interior of the single room with bloodshot eyes.

His great mouth was a bit open and his swollen tongue all but protruded.

“Water!” The word was scarce above a whisper.

“But who are you?”

“Water!” fiercely, insistently.

Of a sudden he spied a wooden pail upon a shelf in the corner, and without invitation, almost as a wild beast springs, he made for it, grasped the big tin dipper in both hands; drank measure after measure, the overflow trickling down his bare throat and dripping onto the sanded floor.

“God, that’s good!” he voiced.  “Good, good!”

After that first involuntary movement Rowland did not stir; but at his side the woman had risen, and behind her, peering around the fortress of her skirts as when before she had argued with Frontiersman Brown, stood the little wide-eyed girl, type of the repressed frontier child.

Back to them came the stranger, his great jowl working unconsciously.

“You are Sam Rowland?” he enunciated thickly.

“Yes.”

“The settlement hasn’t broken up then?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Is it possible that you don’t know, that they don’t know?” Involuntarily he seized his host by the arm.  “I’ve heard of you; you live two miles out.  We’ve no time to lose.  Come, don’t stop to save anything.”